Day of the Stranger Review from Carnie Films!
Directed by: Tom Lee Rutter
Written by: Tom Lee Rutter
Produced by: Tom Lee Rutter
Cinematography by: Tom Lee Rutter
Editing by: Tom Lee Rutter
Music by: Craigus Berry & The Stained Glass Whispers
Special Effects by: Tom Lee Rutter, Rachael Painter
Cast: Dale Sheppard, Gary Baxter, Gary Shail, Richard Rowbotham, Maryam Forouhandeh, Bazz Hancher, Jim Heal, Evan Mancrief
Year: 2020
Country: UK
Language: English
Color: Color
Runtime: 1h 17min
Studio: Carnie Films
Ever since I experienced watching Lee Van Cleef as a kid, glued to the classic spaghetti westerns, I have loved the dirty streets, the dust, the blood, the long silences and the music of that genre. Discovering El Topo many years later placed a different and extreme slant upon the whole picture. The grimy western had a new visionary look and a very deep message. El Topo sits with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in my top 20 movies of all time (Day of Anger and The Great Silence hover around just outside the 20, by the way).
So I love a western with an original take on what we have seen. When I was sent this ‘acid western’ to review, my brain flickered with images of what could be waiting for me. The fact my pal, Gary (Beyond Fury) Baxter has a role in it, so it really totted up some plus points.
Less than five minutes into Day of the Stranger — surreal fast stop motion looking flies surround a dead horse, there is a chase, really over-the-top CGI blood spurts, and equally over-the-top dubbed voices not being carried by the mouths, a suicide throat slicing… all obviously on purpose and all obviously a spittoon full of fun. We have a bounty killer, Caine, who’s chasing down two fugitives. He’s annoyed that his horse has been killed. Dragging the corpse of one of the men for what seems like miles over quarries, fields, desert canyons, he finally passes out through dehydration and exhaustion. In a vision he sees someone stood over him, then a girls face. Then the title screen comes up. Ooooooh, I love it. It’s so much like a real ‘70s era western. Tom Lee Rutter I adore you for this film so far.
Delirious, he wanders, Clint Eastwood-style for many more miles in the sands until he’s back at his boss, Loomweather’s ranch, who lets him accompany him to see some torture and some make-up painting on a corpse. “You wanna fudge tongue him, Boy?” snarls his sadistic boss to the bloodied torture victim as you quite rightfully do in such situations. The oncoming brutality makes even a hardened killer like Caine even wince.
Anyhow, the boss has a plan to take a bounty that is worth a lot of dollars. Caine leaves his pregnant wife and heads off with a bloke called, McGonagel, who has a personal reason to go on this excursion, to their target town. McGonagel unfortunately doesn’t last very long, so Caine is left to deal with whatever is coming alone. The Stranger himself, who may happen to be more than a mere gunslinger… more than a human, in fact…
The film now becomes a two man show, as Caine is taken through some seriously mind screwing torments by The Stranger.
Day of the Stranger is far more authentic in that trying to be spaghetti way than any of Tarantino’s efforts. It’s inventive, comical, and just mean spirited in the fact it twists your mind up into a tight ball. Clearly a lot of solid work has gone into this one. It’s the final half of the film that really finds legs. Surreal religious images, pounding almost white noise music, warping colours, and insane dialogue. This has it all.
A pure bad trip without any substances. What more could you ask for?
I admit, up until Caine meets The Stranger, some of the lengthy scenes and conversations using grudged up fake voices kind of irritated me, but it all leads to a very rewarding bounty and if you hang in there, there’s glory to be found right up to the Dust Devil-style climax.
The effects range from the graphic to the downright weird. Acting honours belong only to Gary Baxter and Dale Sheppard, as The Stranger, and Caine. Having Gary Shail as Loomweather adds a bit of star quality I suppose, as he’s been in a lot of films such as Shock Treatment, Quadrophenia, and had a long term role in the old early ‘80s TV series, Metal Mickey. Yet quite honestly, he didn’t deliver enough for me.
Tom Lee Rutter has been inspired by a short story by Mark Twain, and since he’s worked years on a gaggle of short movies, I feel this is going to be his breakthrough which will be whispered knowingly by cult film enthusiasts for a long while. Locations are well chosen, and the music is sublime throughout.
Day of the Stranger is for genuine lovers of the underground and of the wild odd westerns that floated around in the tumble weed backwoods of the ‘70s.
